General Anthroposophical Society

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General Anthroposophical Society
(AAG)
purpose Maintaining artistic, scientific and educational endeavors in the spirit of the Goetheanum, the School of Spiritual Science.
Chair: Board of Directors: Matthias Girke, Justus Wittich, Joan Sleigh, Constanza Kaliks; Board members Paul Mackay and Bodo von Plato were voted out of office on March 24, 2018 by a majority vote of the General Assembly
Establishment date: 1923/1925
Number of members: At the end of 2014, 46,157 worldwide in 35 national companies and 39 groups
Seat : Dornach SO , SwitzerlandSwitzerlandSwitzerland 
Website: goetheanum.org
The Goetheanum in Dornach: seat of the General Anthroposophical Society

The General Anthroposophical Society (AAG), (short form Anthroposophical Society ) is the umbrella organization for the independent national anthroposophical societies in numerous countries. The association, registered in the commercial register in March 1925, has its seat at the Goetheanum in Dornach near Basel in Switzerland and has had the additional designation "non-profit association" since 1995, which means that according to the Swiss Civil Code (ZGB) , it may not make any real profit through commercial activities exhibit. The center of the AAG is the School of Spiritual Science .

After Steiner's death in 1925, the General Anthroposophical Society got into a crisis due to personal conflicts and disputes about the future course of the society. The so-called constitution problem led to legal disputes in the present, in which the executive committee was defeated against groups of members who had complained. The board of directors had taken the view that the AAG was the direct successor of the Anthroposophical Society, the so-called Christmas Conference Society (WTG), which was newly founded at the Christmas Conference in 1923. Despite legal clarifications, the disputes within the General Anthroposophical Society are not over. In a process initiated by the board of the AAG in 2019, obstacles and controversial points of view are to be openly discussed and addressed in colloquia.

History and problems

From a legal point of view, the General Anthroposophical Society (AAG) is the association of the Goetheanum of the School of Spiritual Science (called “Bauverein”) which was renamed the General Anthroposophical Society on February 8, 1925 , and which forms part of the Anthroposophical Society (“Christmas Conference Society ") An" implied merger "has entered into.

With the founding, von Steiner intended to set up a free university for the humanities and to incorporate all societies and associations that had emerged in the first 20 years of the theosophical-anthroposophical era. That failed because the statute, which was adopted in December for the newly founded Anthroposophical Society, was assessed by the notary Altermatt as not being entered in the commercial register in various points . Since the statute had become legally valid through the adoption, an unauthorized change was excluded, Steiner tried to give the new company a structure that should not lead to any conflict with the entry. The 3rd extraordinary general assembly of the association at the Goetheanum was called to reorganize the board. Steiner should take the chair.

When the publication appeared in the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce on March 7, 1925, the entry of the new company AAG was missing. Instead, only a change of name and statutes as well as a new board were published.

Steiner died on March 30, 1925. Since the last changes to the statute were explicitly made by Steiner, the board and members became aware that their “new beginning” was as if swallowed by the earth; where was the university, where was the Anthroposophical Society itself with its statute, approved by 900 members? Real perplexity seized everyone. Violent arguments and power struggles followed.

Conflicts after Steiner's death and crises in society

After Steiner's death on March 30, 1925, his employees got involved in succession disputes because he had not chosen a successor. Albert Steffen was elected chairman of the society, but the posts of vice chairman and the management of the university remained vacant. From 1925 onwards there were no more regular board meetings. In 1926 the Waldorf movement split into a world school association and a Rudolf Steiner association . Disputes among the members regarding the material heritage, the orientation and management of the society and content-related questions, to what extent Steiner's revelations are binding and the positioning of Christianity in anthroposophical teaching, led to the break: In 1930 the organization was divided into two groups: Initiativkreis ”around Steffen and the widow Marie Steiner and in the anthroposophical working groups under the doctor Ita Wegman . Wegman was expelled from the board in April 1935, but their exclusion was wrongly presented as “self-exclusion”. Carl Unger and Marie Steiner in particular tried to mediate - which in 1935 led to the exclusion of numerous members.

During the National Socialist era , the Anthroposophical Society was banned in Germany on November 1, 1935. As a result, the AAG got into financial difficulties because the membership fees of the numerically strong German national company did not materialize. But the anthroposophical movement itself did not go under. In 1949, the long-standing conflicts over the administration of Steiner's estate led to the separation of a group called the Anthroposophical Association in Switzerland . Since January 16, 1949, it has been an association in accordance with ZGB Art. 60 ff. With its seat in Zurich and was closed in 2017. It is not identical to the Anthroposophical Society in Switzerland .

Free School of Spiritual Science

The free university sees its tasks in "research in the intellectual field", the "suggestion and treatment of questions from practice", as well as further training in anthroposophically oriented fields of work. It is divided into a general anthroposophical and ten specialist sections. The specialist sections are the Mathematical-Astronomical Section, the Medical Section, Natural Science Section, Section for Agriculture, Pedagogical Section, Section for Fine Arts, Section for Speaking and Music-Making Arts, Section for Fine Sciences, Section for Social Sciences, and a youth section.

It was originally designed for three classes. However, during his lifetime, Steiner only founded the first, which is the only one to this day. The content is his meanwhile published internal presentations to the university members, the so-called "class hours". The university college of section heads was only founded in 2000. In 2012/2013 it formed the Goetheanum leadership together with the board of directors of the AAG.

literature

  • Rudolf Steiner: Problems of Coexistence in the Anthroposophical Society (= GA 253). 7 lectures in 1915. Dornach 1989, ISBN 3-7274-2530-X
  • Rudolf Steiner: The history and the conditions of the anthroposophical movement in relation to the Anthroposophical Society (= GA 258). 8 lectures in 1923. Dornach 1931; 3rd A. 1981, ISBN 3-7274-2580-6
  • Rudolf Steiner: The fateful year 1923 in the history of the Anthroposophical Society. From the Goethean fire to the Christmas conference (= GA 259). Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach 1991, ISBN 3-7274-2590-3 .
  • Rudolf Steiner: The Christmas Conference for the Establishment of the General Anthroposophical Society 1923/1924 (= GA 260). 5th supplemented edition. Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach 1994, ISBN 3-7274-2602-0 .
  • Rudolf Steiner: The constitution of the General Anthroposophical Society and the Free University of Spiritual Science. The reconstruction of the Goetheanum (= GA 260a). 2nd Edition. Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach 1987, ISBN 3-7274-2606-3 .
  • Bodo von Plato: On the development of the Anthroposophical Society. A historical overview . Free Spiritual Life, Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-7725-0854-5
  • Magdalena Zoeppritz: Documents and voices on the constitutional question of the Anthroposophical Society. An annotated bibliography. Dossenheim 2002.
  • Rahel Uhlenhoff (ed.): Anthroposophy in past and present. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-8305-1930-0 .
  • Gerhard Wehr : Anthroposophy. Diederichs, Kreuzlingen 2004, ISBN 3-7205-2529-5 .
  • Helmut Zander : Anthroposophy in Germany. Theosophical worldview and social practice 1884–1945. Two volumes. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-525-55452-4 .
  • J. Emanuel Zeylmans van Emmichoven: Who was Ita Wegman. A documentation . 3 volumes. Edition Georgenberg, Heidelberg 1990-92. ISBN 3-929104-02-4 . Volume 4: Arlesheim 2009.
  • Helmut Zander: Anthroposophy. Rudolf Steiner's ideas between esotericism, Weleda, Demeter and Waldorf education. Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn 2019, ISBN 978-3-657-79225-2 .

Web links

  • [1] Official website of the General Anthroposophical Society.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b General Anthroposophical Society. moneyhouse - Commercial register and business information, accessed on June 2, 2015 .
  2. ↑ Seija Zimmermann: Working as an esoteric society . In: General Anthroposophical Society (ed.): News for members - Anthroposophy worldwide . No. 6 , 2015.
  3. ↑ Under the shortened name of the Anthroposophical Society , the General Anthroposophical Society must not be confused with the Anthroposophical Society founded in 1912/13 (re-founded under the same name on December 28, 1923). It is also not identical with the Anthroposophical Society in Germany. V. , which is also often referred to with the short form of the Anthroposophical Society.
  4. ↑ For this reason, the bookstore operated by the AAG and the publishing house were outsourced to independent associations.
  5. ↑ See the minutes of the meeting of June 29, 1924 of the third extraordinary general assembly of the Goetheanum Association of the Free School of Spiritual Science. Notary E. Altermatt (GA ???)
  6. ↑ Miriam Gebhardt : Rudolf Steiner. A modern prophet. DVA, Munich 2011. pp. 334f.
  7. ↑ Free University of Spiritual Science. In: www.goetheanum.org. Retrieved June 2, 2015 .
  8. ^ Rudolf Steiner: Esoteric instructions for the first class of the School of Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum 1924 . In: GA . tape 270 .
  9. ↑ Johannes Kiersch: Steiner's individualized esotericism then and now . For the development of the School of Spiritual Science. 2nd Edition. Verlag am Goetheanum, 2012.
  10. ↑ Michaela Glöckler, Rolf Heine for the international coordination of anthroposophic medicine (ed.): Leadership issues and forms of work in the anthroposophic medical movement . 4th revised edition. Verlag am Goetheanum, Dornach 2015, ISBN 978-3-7235-1548-8 , Das Hochschulkollegium heute, p. 54 .